Year after year, their numbers dwindle. Now, with the average age of former "comfort women" in South Korea approaching 90, time is running out.
The Japanese government has been pressed for years to offer compensation money and extend more sincere apologies to the women, who were forced en masse into Japanese military brothels before and during the war.
But the South Korean government, too, must help settle the issue, Korean affairs experts say, by persuading the citizens' groups that wield so much influence over the victims to compromise.